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Topic: Martial Arts, fitness, etc... (Read 3812 times)

Of corse the first response is someone talking about CrossFit. it is a good workout though, my biggest problem is the cost...

Are you a bike fan? Mountain biking is an awesome cardio workout and also gives a similar rush to driving cars fast. When you put together a good set of corners with a fast downhill and killer climb, it really gets your adrenaline going. There are some decent trails near you, I usually try to bring my bike and ride when Iím in the area.

About that bike thing...lol If you follow me on Instagram and I know Blake does I had a really bad accident June 1 mountain biking. I am almost fully recovered now, but will be looking for some alternative fitness things to do.

Last year I did 30 pushups a day and 60 situps and saw a nice difference. I also did "keto" and no soda, and continue to drink no soda and eat little carbs and am down to 166 from 208.

This is something I worried about when I started in ATA, as some people talked about that a lot within the org. I can't speak for all the studios, but ours you definitely earn it. Fail your board break? No pass, see ya in 3 months (or 6 if you're a black belt). Miss your form (they give you a little leeway on knowing early forms, but only a little)? No pass, see ya in 3 months. Don't hit classes on time or work hard/know your material? Same. One of the instructors kids failed her black belt rank test 5-6 times before she made it through. I really like it because if you earn it, you earn it. Now I'll say that some of the kids in the mid-belts get a little bit of a pass through, but once they're up in the brown/red range, shit gets serious, haha.

I think it's about 4 years to get a shot at black belt if you push hard and pass every exam (which is not guaranteed) and then you're around another year practicing/testing as a recommended black belt before you're a decided. It's not a small investment of time or money, but I feel like it's a great thing and my son enjoys it as well (and it's been positive on him both physically and in confidence/attitude). There's a certain satisfaction to knowing you can kick someone in the head if you have to. LOL

That's good to hear. I just wanted to throw out some cautionary tales about people getting their money taken and not really gaining anything worthy out of it. It's a bonus you can do it with your kids too, and actually talk to them about it and you/them can understand.

Regarding your last statement, I imagine you walking around the town like this now:

lol

Some of this dieting talk has piqued my interest. Further research required... I feel like I typically eat more sugar than I should. Now that I'm 30, I should pay better attention to that probably...

So an update on this topic; I entered my first tournament today. I'm a bit hyper-competitive, so I wasn't sure how it'd go. I'm only a green belt, so still pretty low in the ranks, and my son was interested in doing one, so I entered as a bit of a litmus to see how they went, and if he'd like it.

It was well organized and a pretty fun experience. It's the first time I've been able to compete with other people my age/rank (most of the people in my studio that are adults are black belts, and most of the green belts are younger). Anyway, I completed in form, traditional sparring and combat sparring. Managed to come in first in form, first in combat, and second in traditional sparring. I ran out of gas in traditional sparring and just got too slow. Need to work on my cardio endurance!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun! Still enjoying TKD about a year in, and getting in better shape every day.

And my favorite shot my wife took. This is actually on the way back down from a jump outer crescent kick (think Chuck Norris' kicks, but this wasn't a fully spin). I just like how high up I am. I didn't land the kick on my opponent though, guess I'm not quick Chuck Norris yet.

I'm pretty proud of where I've come considering that a little more than 2 years ago I was 250+ lbs. and couldn't jog 1/4 mile. Been <190 lbs for almost 8 months (which is my target weight). If anyone wants to do this, my advice is just get out there and do it!

"I'm pretty proud of where I've come considering that a little more than 2 years ago I was 250+ lbs. and couldn't jog 1/4 mile. Been <190 lbs for almost 8 months (which is my target weight). If anyone wants to do this, my advice is just get out there and do it!"

Yeah, I ran track in high school and I think I may start doing my hell workouts from there. 300 meter repeats. Basically run 300 meters as fast as you can (aim for <45 seconds) then take a 60 second break to walk back to starting line and repeat. Go until you throw up. LOL

My hyper-competitive attitude is taking hold pretty hard now. I figure I won 2/3 things I entered, I should have won all 3. I also know that I barely won all of the ones I did win (1 point/round difference). I want to win by 3 points and win everything I enter next time. I don't know that I -can- do that, but I can definitely prepare to the best of my ability to do so. I mean, I'm fighting other old dudes like me in my belt rank, and I was very competitive at my current ability/fitness, so if I improve both of those by say, 30%, I should be better positioned, assuming those guys don't do the same thing (or other, more skilled people don't show up from other areas).

All that said, I -like- the close competition, but it gives me a target to beat, if that makes sense.

Competitions for martial arts are the best way to test where you are truly at since most of the time your opponent isn't someone you always spare with and learn their own little patterns etc... and you really hope all your training pays off!! I've mixed in a little muay thai with my BJJ, and boy striking is a different type of cardio!

Can you give a quick summary of the differences of combat sparring vs traditional sparring? I tried to google but couldn't find much.

And maybe what you could do differently to improve the traditional sparring since you did well in combat? IMO combat sparring sounds more legit, so a morale victory for you for taking 1st in that

I have some ideas in my head to do a little krav maga and BJJ or muay thai once I get my first degree black belt in TKD, just to round things out a little.

Traditional sparring is probably best described as Olympic style Taekwando. Kicks/punches to chest, kicks to head, nothing to legs, no punches to head, points based on type of strike (punch or kick to body is 1 point, kick to head is 2 points, jumping for either type of kick is +1 point to base score).

Combat sparring is with a padded stick, and only stick strikes count (think a little like kendo). This is me combat sparring (if this link works I have the black stick/black gloves):

1. I spend a lot of time studying my opponent at first, which meant I started every round down 2-3 points as a rule, then came back to win. I need to study faster and score points more effectively while doing so. My instructors complement me a lot on fighting smart, I just need more practice with it all I think.2. I need to get in, strike, and get clear. I took a lot of hits because I didn't get myself clear after striking. 3. In traditional sparring I ran out of energy in the last round. I just need to improve my fitness more and that won't happen. Running out of gas made #2 (failing to get clear) about 5x worse and I left myself open after my opponent blocked me, instead of either striking again or getting clear. I was starting to come back in that round, but ran out of time (back to #1).4. In all types of sparring I need to use my height to my advantage better. I'm 6'2 and have long legs and I can kick above my head, so I need to learn my range better to keep out of range of shorter opponents when possible.5. My footwork is good, but my upper body is slow on dodging strikes. I tend to block instead of dodge, which is tiring me out. I also tend to use footwork to dodge, which also tires me out. My upper body is too tight on form as well as sparring, so that's a big thing I'm trying to work on, just being more loose/fluid in my movements.

Thanks for the explanation. I have seen the the combat sparring in some TKD tournament videos- just had no idea what it was called. Unfortunately your match video doesn't seem to be working, or at least I can't see it. Your points all make sense. The studying looking for habits seems like a real good innate skill to have... Find the weakness and GO!! RE: Cardio, to me it almost seems like controlling your breathing in the match is just as important as being in good physical shape. I feel like getting too excited and holding your breath at times can be the real energy sapper.

I feel you on the footwork tiring you out, that happens to me too. Not sure if you check youtube much, but Stephen Thompson started a youtube channel this year that shares some pretty good stuff. Although his primary discipline is karate, there is some good content in his channel that could probably apply to TKD, like these footwork drills: and a lead leg round kick etc ... There's plenty of others. If you haven't heard of him, he is an MMA fighter in the UFC but before that was a very successful karate fighter. So I trust his feedback since he has the pedigree to back it up.

So it's been a while since I posted here, but I've still been hard at it.

I've done two more tournaments, one big one and one smaller one.

In the larger tournament, I took first place in forms, and last in sparring/combat. I had a nasty cold and couldn't even speak, so I think that the sickness slowed me down a lot there. I was happy to still take a first place medal home in that condition though.

The second tournament was smaller, between a couple local studios. That meant I was competing with red/black and black belts mostly. In that one I took 3rd in forms (couple of the black belts were REALLY good at forms), 4th in sparring and 1st in combat sparring (woohoo!). I took out another purple belt, a red/black and a black belt to win combat sparring, so I was pretty pleased there. I might have made it to 3rd or better in sparring, but I had a low kick (my fault!) on a reverse spin kick and caught my opponent just below the belt (didn't hit him in the groin, luckily). That meant he got a point for it, where if I'd been 2" higher, I'd have gotten a point instead. I lost that match by 1 point, so that's what did me in. Needless to say I'm working on keeping my spin/reverse kicks higher in the future!

I have seen a notable improvement in my footwork. Both in my ability to dodge/move and to not tire myself out nearly as much as I used to. I'm MUCH faster in combat than I was 6 months ago, too. In the most recent tournament, I won every combat match by 4 points or more, so it was a big difference from my last match (and one of the competitors was someone I had to go to overtime against in the first tournament).

Beyond that, I'm also learning some weapons. I've done some work with double nunchucks, as well a lot of work with a bo staff. The staff is going to be my weapon for tournaments in the future, so I'm working on a form for that. My instructor is a multi-time champion in staff, so I've got a good teacher!

My son is still at it also, and we both will be promoted to blue belt this week, which means about 14-18 months until we're eligible for black belt if all goes well. I've got 3 tournaments coming up in March/April this year, so I'm pretty stoked to see how I can do. Working hard on sparring right now as I really want to be more competitive there!

Oh! I also did a Krav intro/basics class with a master (7th degree black belt in training) at my studio. That was a pretty cool experience; hopefully they're going to setup a 2-3 day intensive clinic on it at some point in the future.

Just another random update; Tournaments have all been postponed due to the COVID, but weíve been doing Zoom remote classes. Iíve been doing a lot of drills/practice solo as well.

I did move up to ďLeadershipĒ which means I can train to be an instructor in the future and I can score points in tournaments that count towards titles. So hopefully once the tournaments spin back up I can start competing for a possible title in one class, which would be pretty cool!

"I'm pretty proud of where I've come considering that a little more than 2 years ago I was 250+ lbs. and couldn't jog 1/4 mile. Been <190 lbs for almost 8 months (which is my target weight). If anyone wants to do this, my advice is just get out there and do it!"

That is same as me and I cannot break 200. Back up to 218 now and need to re-focus and try again. Been 201 and 200.3 lbs before for weeks and never got under. I felt like I was one good sh*t away from breaking into the 'ones' but... nope. Then I got frustrated and started eating carbs again.

Intermittent fasting has helped me eat like a 12 yr old at candy store and not blow up to 300lbs but I need a massive overhaul of diet combined with IF and some resistance training I think.